


Day 2: AU (Single Parent AU)

by VoidGhost



Series: Peapod McHanzo Week 2k19 [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: But there's children so its happier, Car Crashes and Comas, Light Angst, M/M, Single Parent AU, hanzo is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 16:04:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17287187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoidGhost/pseuds/VoidGhost
Summary: Hanzo has been living in solitude for seven months, only leaving to visit a therapist. On the encouragement of said therapist, he visits a local park, where he bumps into a girl drawing with chalk.Her father is pretty good-looking, too.





	Day 2: AU (Single Parent AU)

**Author's Note:**

> THIS is the one I've been waiting for!! After writing this, I fell in love with this AU. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> PS, there's a lot more in this AU coming ;)

The park was a refreshing a new sight to behold after sheltering himself in his one-bedroom apartment for the past couple months. There was a path winding its way around the perimeter with benches every twenty feet or so, and a children’s playground sat in the middle. A colorful metal jungle gym with tube slides and monkey bars were fixed to the ground made of wood chips, and delighted every child who convinced their parents for an outing today. 

Hanzo tucked his hands in his pockets and took a deep breath of the cool, crisp air. It was nice timing for a visit to the park, for him and the other families here, as the chill of autumn was right around the corner. This park would not be nearly as busy as today in the coming months once the first frost hit. 

The idea almost made him upset. He finally got the courage to step out of his bachelor-style apartment and already he would have to hole himself inside again. A pity he wasted the summer away sulking in his own grief. 

It was his fault, really. All of it was. The accident was ruled as just that, an accident, but Hanzo felt nothing but shame because of it. 

He had been the one driving, after all. Genji was in the passenger seat. It had only been a moment; a second to change the song playing over the speakers, some shitty pop song Hanzo couldn’t remember but hated all the same, and he took the phone stuck in the cupholder to skip to the next Spotify choice. Genji was distracted, his hands animated and his eyes on his brother as he recounted some awful story about his college dorm - and Hanzo remembered this clearly - where the video production kids made a pentagram out of Christmas lights in the lounge and Genji volunteered to help. All in that one second, of changing a song and listening to Genji’s story, he didn’t see the Toyota with a guard bar coming from the right of the intersection. It hit them square-on. 

The impact caused both vehicles to spin out of control, and Hanzo found himself stomping on the breaks, songs lost forgotten, as his car slid through other lanes before crashing to a stop at a guard rail.  

He came out with a few bruises. Genji, however, did not. 

Hanzo learned what the ‘jaws of life’ were that day. They peeled back the crushed car door and rescued Genji’s battered body out from inside. He was so twisted, so pale and covered in his own blood that Hanzo thought he was dead. 

But they hooked him up to a stretcher and wheeled him in an ambulance that was gone before Hanzo was shoved into another emergency vehicle. He knew that no sheet over the body meant that Genji was alive, for now. 

The hospital did all they could. He was alive; he damaged a good portion of his torso, but he hit his head hard on the impact. He fell into the deepest coma and remained there, seven months later. If he were to waken, where his chances of doing so dropping for every hour he remains under, it is not even certain he could walk, let alone be the same Genji that Hanzo once knew. 

Despite the severity, Hanzo didn’t get arrested like he felt he should. Granted, the Toyota driver took most of the blame because of his already suspended license, with justification that he shouldn’t have been on the roads in the first place, but Hanzo still admitted to what he did and he felt he received nothing but a slap on the wrist. Some debt for damages, a bruised rib, and a comatose brother who might never be the same. 

Hanzo killed his brother, plain and simple. 

A chilled wind brought his attention to tears pooling in his eyes. Hanzo hastily blinked them away, not wanting to get caught up in his own internal dilemma when he was finally taking a step towards helping himself. 

His therapist suggested this - and to say he willingly signed up for it would be a lie; his parents can’t do much from across the ocean, owning their private business and all, but they can send money and force him to attend these things out of guilt. It was the only time during the past few months where he left the house, aside from visits to his brother. His therapist was a lovely older woman by the name of Ana, and while he didn’t come of his own volition, he started to take her advice after his fifth or six meeting. The first month was just him word-vomiting the guilt that has been festering within him ever since the accident. Once it was all out, Hanzo felt more clear-headed than he ever did since he saw the jaws of life in action. 

Which lead him to this, taking himself out to a park just to try and enjoy life. Even after admitting his self-loathing to Ana, it never went away. Now, it tried to bubble up, to ruin what he finally convinced himself to do, instead of stewing in a cesspool of shame and misery--

His toe bumped something on the path, pausing his thoughts and his brisk walk. He took a step back to realize it was a blue stick of chalk, and surrounding him, were two long figures of….something, one blue and one green. It was a child’s drawing, to be sure, because he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. 

“Excuse me, sir.” 

Hanzo looked up to find a young girl, maybe eight or nine, standing in front of him, one hand pointed to the ground. He took a step back so the child could pick up the stick of chalk. 

“Thank you!” She turned away from him without a care, and knelt beside the oddly shaped noodles and continued coloring them in. On the grass next to the sidewalk, there was a bucket of other chalk colors. 

Hanzo stepped onto the grass so he wouldn’t smudge up the drawings, and he paused for another moment to watch the child. She was a young girl, with deep brown locks tied into a braid with a yellow hairband. She had dark skin with a peppering of freckles all across her nose and cheeks that disappeared down her neck. A pair of yellow-framed glasses sat on the bridge of her nose. She stuck her tongue out the corner of her mouth in concentration as she continued to draw details along the blue creature’s spine. 

She noticed him pausing and spared him a glance. “If you wanna color I got some more chalk.” 

“Oh, no thank you,” Hanzo awkwardly spoke, and coughed into his hand at being caught watching. “What are you drawing, by the way?”

“A dragon,” The child answered simply. She pointed to the green creature. “That’s his brother.” 

Hanzo tried and failed to suppress a chill that seemed to freeze his bones. “They look lovely.” 

“They sure do,” She agreed confidently. “Papi says I’m gonna be an artist.” 

“I agree with him,” Hanzo said, in the flattering way all adults speak to aspiring children. He looked around and realized for the first time that this young child appeared to be alone. “Where is your father?” He was suddenly struck with the idea that this child was left unattended, far too young to be allowed to roam a busy park alone, even if she lived in one of the houses nearby. 

Hanzo was reaching for his phone even as the child sat up and pointed to the playground. “He’s with my brother at the jungle gym. He’s little and needs help climbing the stairs.” 

Hanzo looked over at all the parents huddled around the playground watching their children and wondered which one could be her father. He slipped his phone back in his pocket but didn’t let it out of his grip yet. 

“I see,” He said, off-handedly. He was still eyeing the playground, trying to find a match to the little girl when she set the chalk on the ground and wiped the dust off her hands with her jeans. 

“Did you see my green chalk?” She asked, crawling on her hands and knees to the chalk bucket. 

Hanzo stepped around the sidewalk tile with the dragons and saw no green chalk. “No. Where did you set it down?”

“I had it earlier,” She said vaguely, rummaging in her bucket of chalk colors. A touch of panic hit her voice as she said, “I can’t find it!” 

Hanzo knelt on the ground beside her. “It is alright, we will find it. I am sure it just rolled into the grass.” 

He and the girl crawled in the grass surrounding the sidewalk to find the missing chalk. Seeing the drawing after the girl had added some more detail, Hanzo could see the dragon more. The blue dragon had spines running down its back, and it curved itself into a circle shape. It had one yellow eye and the outline of its jaw was defined by a darker blue. 

The green dragon still was only an outline, and Hanzo was determined to see it finished. 

Hanzo’s hand bumped into a solid green object hidden amongst the grass, and he held up a stick of green chalk. He smiled at the achievement and opened his mouth to call for the little girl, only to realize someone had to walked up to him while he was busy kneeling in the grass. 

A man with flannel sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a dark pepper of freckles across his nose stood looking down at Hanzo, a small boy in overalls who couldn’t be more than three clinging to the man’s shoulder as he was held. The boy lacked any freckles and had a lighter complexion, but he had a mess of dark curly hair on the very top of his head.

“Howdy,” The man greeted, tipped his head, and Hanzo realized he was staring up at the man from a compromised position. Fighting down a blush, Hanzo stood, chalk in his fist. 

“I apologize if I was in your way,” Hanzo said, flexing his free hand anxiously. 

“Don’t worry about it,” The man said. He nodded his head towards the sidewalk. “Saw you made friends with my Aria and thought I’d introduce m’self.” 

Hanzo then paused, momentarily afraid his intentions were mistaken. He knew how paranoid parents could be, and a strange man introducing himself to a young girl looked suspicious no matter the context. 

The man seemed to read his mind, and laughed. “If I thought you were up to something, we would not be talking right now.” 

Hanzo managed a small, awkward smile before the young girl, Aria, appeared and gasped in delight at the chalk in Hanzo’s hand. 

“You found it!” She then seemed to notice her father. “Hi Papi!” 

“Hey sweetheart,” The man greeted. He turned to Hanzo. “That’s Ari, she hasn’t understood the meaning of stranger danger yet.” 

Aria either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him, and took the green chalk to return to her drawings. The man shook his head in fond exasperation. 

“This is Mateo. Say hi, Matty.” The little boy shyly turned away to bury his face in his father’s shoulder while the man laughed. “He’s a shy one. Go on an’ play with your sister.” He set the boy down on the ground and he ran off to the chalk bucket, digging inside to find a color he liked. 

The man held out a hand towards Hanzo. “And I’m Jesse McCree, their dad.” 

Hanzo took the man’s hand and swallowed down the warm feeling the man’s charms caused inside him. “Hanzo Shimada.” 

Jesse grinned, and with a wink, said, “It’s a pleasure to meet ya, Hanzo. Ya come to the park often?”

Hanzo had some sense that he was being flirted with, but was unsure what to make of it, and if he was even prepared to accept it. “First time in a few months.” 

“That so? Good thing we both decided this morning that it was a good afternoon for the park.” Another smooth smile. “Would’ve hate to miss out on runnin’ into each other like this.” 

Something uncomfortable must have shown on his face, because Jesse backtracked in an instant. “If I’m saying something wrong, you can tell me to get lost.” 

“No!” Hanzo’s quick admission had Jesse raising an eyebrow. “I am only…uncertain.” He did not want to go into detail over his grief holding him back, so he kept it simple. Whether it was shameful to ask a guy to coffee while his brother was still in the hospital was something he didn’t let his mind dwell on. 

It was a vague answer, but Jesse’s easy smile was back in place, if only a little less flirtatious. “No problem, darlin’.” 

Jesse looked over at the two kids, and Hanzo followed his gaze to see that each child claimed a sidewalk tile to draw on. One tile had the green and blue dragons circling each other, and the other a blob of pink and red. 

“We just moved here a month ago,” Jesse started, drawing Hanzo’s attention. “It’s a little house ‘round the corner. A lot bigger than our old trailer out in the desert. Ari was happy to get her own room. And they’ve been buggin’ me ever since we drove past this place to check it out, but I wanted to get everything unpacked first an’ make sure the utilities worked an’ all that.” 

“They seem like happy kids,” Hanzo commented, because they do. Aria may have been a bit demanding and Mateo shy, but Hanzo could see now that they lived happy lives as they sat next to each other and colored. 

Jesse had a grin on his face. “I’m glad they do.” 

It was a happy family, but Hanzo couldn’t help notice that a detail was missing. “Do they have a mother?”

The grin fell, and Hanzo instantly regretted asking. But then Jesse was looking at him with a small smile. His voice was low when he said, “Ari’s Ma left when she was two. She don’t remember her though, thank goodness. She ain’t the kindest woman, and our relationship wasn’t the best.” He looked back to the kids, watching Mateo blow on the pile of chalk dust gathering in the middle of his drawing. “An’ I’m technically fostering Matty but the adoption papers should be comin’ through any day now.” 

Hanzo continued watching Jesse, something warm and heavy building in his chest. “You are a great man for taking such good care of these children.” 

Jesse looked back at him, surprised, and even seemed to blush under the compliment. He floundered for words for a moment. “Shoot, darlin’, they deserve it.” 

They kept the conversation going until the sun hit the horizon, a low light settling over the park with the warning of darkness. That was when Jesse called the kids to pick up their chalk and start preparing to head home. 

All throughout the time they had, they discussed their lives and experience in the neighborhood, but not once did Hanzo mention Genji, and that was alright with him. It was too heavy to unleash that on a man he met today, despite the growing fondness that tightened in his chest everytime Jesse smiled at him. 

Before they left, Aria hugged him. “Thanks for helping me find my chalk, Mr. Hanzo.” 

“It was not a problem, Aria.” She carried the bucket of chalk so the hug had the bucket repeatedly hitting Hanzo on the back of his legs, but he still felt some pride in the fact that a young child decided he was a worthy of a hug. 

Mateo predictably hid behind Jesse’s legs instead of offering a wave goodbye, but neither Hanzo or Jesse forced it out of him. As Jesse found Mateo’s hand to hold, he beared a resemblance to his son as he nervously scratched at his neck. 

“Since I see that Ari has taken a shine to you,” Jesse commented, hesitantly meeting Hanzo’s eyes. “Can I get your number? Maybe get coffee sometime?”

Something in Hanzo’s mind knew that this was coming, and yet he was still shocked that anyone would  _ want  _ to ask him to coffee. He had been just short of a social recluse these past few months that the entire concept of dating was pushed to the backburner and forgotten. 

He took too long to respond, and Jesse’s smile deflated in a way that was barely noticeable. “Ya don’t have to, don’t mean to pressure ya.” 

Hanzo shook his head, and running purely on a burst of euphoria coming from somewhere in the warm feeling in his chest, he gave Jesse a smile. 

“I would love to.” 

Numbers exchanged, Hanzo held the small piece of paper in his hands as he watched the small family walk off into the growing darkness. He looked down at the number written across the paper, punctuated with ‘Jesse <3’. 

Hanzo couldn’t help the grin across his face. It was by far the most exciting thing to happen to him in what felt like ages. The last date he had was over a year ago. He was more focused on finding a job after graduating, and recently it wasn’t a priority. 

He had started to walk in the direction of his apartment, but stopped as he stepped onto the sidewalk. Mateo’s pink blob was recognizable, but what caught his eye were the two dragons. 

They circled each other, and Jesse was right when he said Aria had talent. At eight, she had a concept of shading and detail, however primitive it might be; but that wasn’t what he focused on. He saw the green dragon, finally finished, fixed with scales and a golden eye, seemingly looking into his soul. 

_ That’s his brother _ . 

He was suddenly sick. What was he doing, flirting with the locals when he should be by his brother’s side? He did not deserve to leave his apartment this morning, let alone plan a date with a stranger. 

Crumpling the note in his hand, he shoved both fists into his pockets and stalked home. 

**Author's Note:**

> Do you enjoy my work and want to support a fic writer?  
> [Buy me a coffee!](%E2%80%9Cko-fi.com/voidghost%E2%80%9D)


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